


These Violent Delights

by learningthetrees



Category: Slow West (2015)
Genre: AU, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6271390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningthetrees/pseuds/learningthetrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he’d agreed to travel with Silas, Jay had expected ambushes or firefights with more criminals trying to get the better of him. What he didn’t expect was a soft-spoken man meandering through their camp, offering them drinks and cigars. It had been strange, Jay thought, but Silas didn’t seem to think so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Violent Delights

**Author's Note:**

> As requested on Tumblr!

It was dark.

The forest was lit only by the distant moon, and when the clouds shifted in front of it, Jay was thrown into such blackness that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to see the ground beneath his feet. He paused, hearing only the rustle of leaves and the occasional far-off hoot of an owl. There was also a low roar in his ears — was that the absinthe growling at him?

After a moment, Jay realized he’d been standing and staring at this tree for quite a while. His initial task was completed, and yet his feet felt heavy and his mind numb to anything except the sound of the woods around him.

He should probably get back.

Where _was_ back?

Jay turned slowly on his heel, trying to think back to when he’d tramped through the underbrush to this spot. Which way had he come from? Everything looked the same in the dark. There was a crunch of leaves, and he spun again, ascertaining where it came from. But he was greeted by nothing but silence. Maybe he was imagining things?

No. He’d certainly heard something. He was out here alone in the dark, where he shouldn’t be. He should be back at camp. Jay looked around again and, deciding on a direction, began tromping back through the woods. Nothing looked familiar, and yet he didn’t expect it to. The absinthe had muddled his brain so, he didn’t even fully remember walking out here to relieve himself.

The arrival of the strange man — Payne, Silas had called him — at their camp had been a bit of a shock to Jay. When he’d agreed to travel with Silas, Jay had expected ambushes or firefights with more criminals trying to get the better of him. What he didn’t expect was a soft-spoken man meandering through their camp, offering them drinks and cigars. It had been strange, Jay thought, but Silas didn’t seem to think so. Sure, Silas had been wary, surveying the newcomer with a guarded gaze, but he’d put away his pistol and taken a drink anyway.

And after the first cup, things became a blur for Jay, and he nearly forgot Payne was there.

Jay crashed through a thicket of vines and twigs, emerging into a clearing — their camp. Only this couldn’t be their camp, because the fire had smoldered into ashes and was coughing up smoke, and there was no one to be seen except a figure lying prone on the ground that —

“Silas?”

The figure groaned but otherwise didn’t move.

Jay felt the cold clarity of sobriety cut through the warm buzz in his head. He raced across the clearing and dropped to his knees next to Silas, rolling him over onto his side. “Oh, God,” he breathed, the words escaping his lips like a prayer.

Silas’s left eye was swollen shut, the skin torn on his cheekbone and his lip split. Tracks of blood traced down his face, mixing with dirt and dust. “What happened?” Jay asked.

In response, Silas leaned over and spat a mess of bloody saliva on the ground beside him. He set his jaw and grasped his left shoulder as he started to sit up.

“Silas!”

The man’s eyes shot up to his, pained, but overall, annoyed. “What?” he managed to grunt out.

“What happened?” There was a pleading edge to Jay’s voice.

“’s nothing.” But when he tried to stand, Silas groaned again and fumbled backward, landing on the ground again.

“Stay still,” Jay said, putting a hand on the man’s chest to keep him stable while he looked over Silas’s facial injuries.

“I’m fine,” Silas said, although his voice was now so hushed that Jay couldn’t believe him.

Jay stood and went to the now-dead campfire, squinting through the darkness until he spotted the rag Silas had been using to clean his knife. Jay grabbed it and dipped it in the pail of water they’d boiled earlier — now lukewarm — wringed it out, and crouched beside Silas again. He reached out to press the cloth to the man’s head, but thought better of it and instead offered it to him. Silas glanced up at it, stared for a moment, and then took it from his grasp.

As Silas gently wiped the blood from his face and dabbed against his swollen eye, Jay looked behind him, eyes straining to see through the tree line. What if whoever had done this was still lying in wait, ready to strike? What if they wouldn’t rest until both Silas and Jay were beaten and bleeding?

“They’re long gone,” said Silas. Jay looked over, but the man was dabbing at the corner of his mouth, eyes averted.

“Who is?” Silas said nothing. Once he was sure no answer was forthcoming, Jay crossed to the fire ring and stacked up some of the smaller kindling. He retrieved a pack of matches and struck one, tossing it into the ring, but it spluttered out before it could catch. He tried again, this time with more success. A tiny flame blossomed, setting one twig and then another ablaze until it was crackling.

With a flickering orange glow filling the campsite, Jay turned around to face Silas. He looked even worse for wear in the half-light, his face a mottled collection of shadows and bruises. Silas grimaced, silent, as he lifted his right shoulder. His next words were a low mumble Jay couldn’t understand.

“What?” He took a few steps closer.

“I said I need your help, goddammit.” Silas spat out the words like he resented them. He probably did.

Jay knelt beside him, eyes wide. “I need you to take my arm,” Silas said, through gritted teeth, “and raise it. _Slowly_.”

Jay paused, cautious. “Why?”

Silas sighed. “It’s out of joint. I need you to put it back.”

Jay felt his mouth drop open. “You — I — I can’t, I don’t know how —”

"Jesus, Jay, just do it!”

Jay exhaled a sharp breath and shook the doubts from his mind. Then he carefully, gently, grasped Silas’s wrist. He turned the man’s elbow at an angle, rotating his arm slightly as he lifted it. Silas’s face was stoic nearly the entire time — until there was a slight pop, and his mouth twitched in a split-second scowl.

“Is that right?” Jay asked. Silas grunted. Jay reached into his jacket breast pocket for the bandana he kept there, folding it in half and looping it under Silas’s arm before he knew what Jay was doing. “It won’t heal unless you bind it,” Jay said, tying a knot in the makeshift sling.

This earned another grunt from Silas. Jay supposed this was the closest he’d get to a thank you. He turned and added a few logs to the fire, which eagerly engulfed them, crackling and jumping to full force. Jay set the pail of water to boil again, and the two sat in silence as the water began to bubble. Jay dipped the bloodied rag in the hot water and proffered it to Silas.

“For — uh, for your cut.” He gestured to Silas’s cheek. It was still dark, but it was clear to Jay that the wound was weeping. Silas pressed the rag to his cheek. Another long moment of silence passed, with the question running through Jay’s mind before he finally uttered it. “Who did this, Silas?”

Silas didn’t look up. “Who do you think?”

It only made sense. Jay had left Silas and Payne and had returned to a bloodied Silas and no Payne. “Payne?”

Silas jerked his head in a terse nod. “And the rest of his gang.”

Jay shook his head. “Why?”

“They wanted something from me. I didn’t give it to ’em.”

“What?”

But that was the end of the conversation. The fire dwindled again, even the owls and crickets growing softer as the night deepened around them. Jay’s chin was nodding towards his chest when the low grumble of Silas’s voice roused him.

“You love her?”

Jay looked up, brow creased. “Who?”

Despite the swelling, the exasperation was evident on Silas’s face. “Rose.”

Why had he brought her up? Why now? “Yes.”

“Then go home, kid.”

At first, Jay thought he had heard him wrong. Go home? After all this? He couldn’t — he wouldn’t give up now, wouldn’t leave without finding Rose. “She’s mine.”

Silas shook his head. His voice was soft. “She’s nobody’s.”

Jay wanted to lunge at him, to hit him, to somehow force him to take it back, but one look at the man told Jay he’d been through enough. Instead, Jay turned his back on Silas and laid down on his pallet, staring beyond the camp into the dark forest. Somewhere, some deep intuition was stirring up an inkling of guilt, and he couldn’t help but feel that Silas had been hurt because of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com)!


End file.
